DISQUS

I realize U.S. mariners are well trained, but are they trained in hand-to-hand combat? Are they prepared to literally fight to the death?

I served 20 years in the Navy with several tours aboard combat ships and a couple times with SEALs. I know from personal experience that U.S. Navy men and women, though highly trained to fight long distance with sophisticated electronics and weapons, are not trained to fight terrorists close-in.

While carriers might have armed marines onboard who have been trained to fight, most ships have very limited ability to fight or even repel boarders.

There might be heightened awareness because of the U.S.S. Cole attack, but if the enemy happened to be a crewmember who snuck explosives or weapons aboard, there would be little defense.

This is a highly unlikely scenario on a Navy ship and I'd hope it would be the same on an LNG or or other tanker, but with 3/4th of the crew still being foreign nationals, the remaining 1/4th would be at a tremendous disadvantage.

I really hope I'm wrong, but I remember U.S.S. Pueblo's capture by the North Koreans and I remember the attack on U.S.S. Cole. There's a lot of time between the two events, but the Navy still was not prepared to fight off attackers.

I don't know what sort of training merchant seamen go through, but I doubt it's much better than what the average sailor experiences in eight weeks of bootcamp, which is little more than learn how to march in step, fold their uniforms, PT, history, fire fighting, a run through a tear gas chamber and more marching. This was bootcamp in 1964 for me and it's still that way http://www.navy.com/about/during/bootcamp/. So, please forgive me if I doubt a mariner's ability to defend himself and his ship if the enemy is already onboard.